FAILURE ON PART OF SL GOVT.– LORD NASEBY
Lord Naseby (Michael Morris) - Founder of the Sri Lanka Friendship Group in the UK Parliament/ All Party Parliamentary Group on Sri Lanka, said yesterday that there was failure on the part of the Sri Lankan government in informing the international community of its actions. “There are people claiming that Tamils returning to the island are being harassed but this is a total lie. The British High Commission in Colombo has recorded the return of 400 Tamils in the past 12 months and given them a private number to call if they are in need of assistance—
There are people claiming that Tamils returning to the island are being harassed but this is a total lie
there has been only one call to this number and that too on a personal issue,” he said. He said despite this fact there were just a few Tamils returning to the island to help rebuild Jaffna and the contribution by the Diaspora towards the reconstruction in Jaffna was also poor. “When in Jaffna I visited shops and hospitals and asked them how the Diaspora was helping and they said there was no assistance by the Diaspora,” he said.
However he commended the fact that the High Commission was making some effort to counter misinformation. “For the first time the Sri Lankan High Commission in the UK is having weekly meetings to inform the Diaspora of the work being done in Sri Lanka,” he said. Lord Naseby expressed his disappointment at the support of the UK towards the US sponsored resolution at the UNHRC. However he said that the bulk of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission recommendations needed to be implemented quickly and visibly. He also said that there was a certain tendency of the Lankan government to make promises but not deliver on them. He said the country’s domestic politics played a huge role in the UK’S interactions with Sri Lanka. “There are eight Parliamentary seats which are directly dependent on the Tamil Community vote and we had an election in 2012 which was very close, and it polarized the whole situation,” he said.
Having gathered information while in Sri Lanka, he would challenge the statement made by present Shadow Foreign Secretary David Milliband claiming that only 60 tonnes of food had been distributed to the North during the period from April 4 to 27, 2009.
“After having met with the head of the ICRC, who stated that food was provided to the areas of conflict till the end of the first week of May in 2009 I have gathered more information on these matters.